Latino groups launch new drive to register voters

Today's events will take place in 17 states, 40 cities, including Houston

MARGARET COKER, Cox News Service

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, July 1, 2006

Latino rights groups today are kicking off their strategy to register new citizens and children of immigrants as voters in a bid to increase the community's political power in the fall elections and beyond.

Latinos are the nation's largest minority group, with 35.5 million citizens, and they represent the fastest growing bloc of voters. Traditionally, voter registration and election turnout rates among Latinos have lagged significantly below that of other ethnic groups, including blacks.

This year, community activists expect that to change because of the rallying cry of immigration.

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"Our people are angry. They are angry at the way that Republicans have treated them. They are scared that their families will be broken up. They are angry, and they are going to do something about it," said Christina Lopez, the deputy executive director for the Wash- ington-based Center for Community Change, a national umbrella group of immigration-focused groups.

Today's events — some to register voters and some to begin training volunteers to do so — will take place in at least 40 cities in 17 states.

Even before this summer's voter registration drive, the trend toward Latino civic participation was on the rise.

This spring, millions of Hispanic American citizens and immigrants, the vast majority of whom are Spanish-speaking, marched in favor of a comprehensive immigration reform that would provide a path to citizenship to immigrants who are in the country illegally, but are working and abiding by the law.

Critics say that this would amount to amnesty for lawbreakers and instead have called for new laws declaring illegal immigrants felons.

The controversy has divided the Republican Party and frozen changes of passing immigration legislation in Congress, just as it has mobilized people across the nation.

With emotions running high about immigration, the numbers of potential voters could influence a large number of state races this fall, according to Latino activists. About 17 states are conducting gubernatorial races in 2006 in which the voting bloc represented by U.S.-born children of immigrants is large enough to swing the race, according to political analysts.

About 9 million people living in the United States are eligible for citizenship but have not applied because they lack either the information or the money to do so, immigration lawyers say.

Because it takes six months on average for citizenship applications to be processed, this number of voters will mostly likely not be eligible to vote in the fall elections.

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Organizers of today's registration events say that they want to harness Latino and immigrant numbers into voting power for the 2008 presidential elections as well.

"This is a long-term strategy. It's a long-term outlook to engage the community, getting them involved in their own future," said Josh Hoyt, the executive director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.